This application is related to and claims priority from Japanese Patent Applications No. 2002-336553 filed on Nov. 20, 2002 and No. 2002-339242 filed on Nov. 22, 2002, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner that has a direct air outlet for blowing conditioned air directly toward a passenger in a passenger compartment and an indirect air outlet for blowing conditioned air indirectly toward the passenger in the passenger compartment.
2. Description of Related Art
In a vehicle air conditioner described in JP-A-1-285417(corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,033), a cooling operation for cooling a passenger compartment is performed to have three operation stages, that is, a rapid cooling stage (cool down stage), a stationary cooling stage, and a transient cooling stage between the rapid cooling stage and the stationary cooling stage. Further, an air outlet mode is changed in accordance with the cooling operation stage. In the vehicle air conditioner, conditioned air is blown into the passenger compartment from an instrument panel, a center console and the like. Therefore, it is difficult to provide a uniform air temperature distribution or a uniform wind speed distribution in the passenger compartment. As a result, it is difficult to obtain a comfortable air-conditioning state in an entire passenger compartment.
In view of the above problems, it is a first object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner capable of providing a comfortable air-conditioning state in an entire passenger compartment by forming a uniform air temperature distribution or a uniform wind speed distribution.
It is a second object of the present invention to provide a vehicle air conditioner capable of providing a uniform air temperature distribution or a uniform wind speed distribution in an entire passenger compartment by effectively using a direct air outlet from which conditioned air is directly blown to a passenger of the passenger compartment and an indirect air outlet from which conditioned air is indirectly blown to the passenger of the passenger compartment.
According to the present invention, a vehicle air conditioner includes an air outlet portion having a plurality of air outlets from which conditioned air from an air conditioning unit is blown into a passenger compartment. The air outlet portion has a direct air outlet from which conditioned air is directly blown to a passenger in the passenger compartment, and an indirect air outlet from which conditioned air is indirectly supplied to the passenger to be diffused. Generally, the indirect air outlet is provided in an inner wall portion of the passenger compartment for supplying conditioned air substantially from an entire area of the inner wall portion. The vehicle air conditioner further includes a cooling state determining means for determining a proceeding state in a rapid cooling operation, and an air amount control unit for controlling an air amount blown from the direct air outlet and an air amount blown from the indirect air outlet based on the proceeding state detected by the cooling state determining means. In addition, the air amount control unit increases the air amount blown from the direct air outlet to be larger than the air amount blown from the indirect air outlet, when the cooling state determining means determines that the proceeding state is in an initial stage with respect to a predetermined stage. Thus, an air blowing direction and an air blowing amount from the air outlets into the passenger compartment can be controlled in accordance with an air-conditioning state in the passenger compartment. Therefore, rapid cooling of the passenger compartment can be obtained while comfortable feeling is given to the passenger. Accordingly, a comfortable air-conditioning environment can be provided in the entire passenger compartment, in the rapid cooling operation.
In addition, the air amount control unit increases the air amount blown from the indirect air outlet to be larger than the air amount blown from the direct air outlet, when the cooling state determining means determines that the proceeding state is in a later stage with respect to the predetermined stage. Further, when the cooling state determining means determines that the rapid cooling operation is ended, the air amount control unit reduces a total air amount blown into the passenger compartment to be smaller than that in the initial stage of the rapid cooling operation while supplying conditioned air from the indirect air outlet into the passenger compartment. Therefore, air conditioning feeling given to the passenger can be improved without a manual change of an air blowing control plate such as grills, an air outlet mode or an air blowing amount.
For example, the indirect air outlet is a wall-surface air blowing means for indirectly blowing conditioned air toward a passenger in the passenger compartment from an inner design wall portion of the passenger compartment, and the direct air outlet includes a seat air blowing means for directly blowing conditioned air toward a passenger on a seat in the passenger compartment. The cooling state determining means includes a rapid-cooling determining means for determining whether the rapid cooling operation is performed. Further, the air amount control unit includes a rapid-cooling amount control means for determining a first air amount to be blown from both of the wall-surface air blowing means and the seat air blowing means when the rapid-cooling determining means determines that the rapid cooling operation is performed, and a stationary-cooling amount control means for determining a second air amount to be blown from both of the wall-surface air blowing means and the seat air blowing means when the rapid-cooling determining means determines that the rapid cooling operation is not performed. Therefore, a uniform air temperature distribution or a uniform wind speed distribution in an entire passenger compartment can be provided by effectively controlling the air amount blown from the direct air outlet and the air amount blown from the indirect air outlet.